Maker Pro
Maker Pro

Connect 12V LEDs to 2 12V car deep cycle batteries

Tracker

Dec 19, 2017
37
Joined
Dec 19, 2017
Messages
37
One additional thought. Sometimes people think "deep discharge" of a battery means going to zero. It might be a good idea to keep the charge to at least 25% and possibly 40% to avoid short battery life.

Yes, I've been told "batteries don't like to be discharged," and it's better to recharge them after every use, which I have been doing. The battery meter on the scooter has 10 lights, roughly representing 10% charge each. With my use pattern it rarely goes below 70 or 80%, and I put it back on the charger which charges to 100% and goes into trickle charge mode.
 

Tracker

Dec 19, 2017
37
Joined
Dec 19, 2017
Messages
37
Yes, I've been told "batteries don't like to be discharged," and it's better to recharge them after every use, which I have been doing. The battery meter on the scooter has 10 lights, roughly representing 10% charge each. With my use pattern it rarely goes below 70 or 80%, and I put it back on the charger which charges to 100% and goes into trickle charge mode.

BTW, I haven't assembled all the components for the installation of the lights yet, and have had trouble finding a small fuse. The light strips use 120ma each, and I'm using two of them. Smallest fuse in fuse holder found so far was 2 amp. Was hoping to find at least .3 amp. Would the 2 amp suffice. Some of the users of these things say they used 5 amp.
 

(*steve*)

¡sǝpodᴉʇuɐ ǝɥʇ ɹɐǝɥd
Moderator
Jan 21, 2010
25,510
Joined
Jan 21, 2010
Messages
25,510
There are a couple of battery technologies that will quite happily tolerate a complete discharge, however the most common ones in use these days definitely do not.

I don't know what your scooter uses, but if it has a "fuel gauge" for the battery then the battery may be lithium. They definitely don't like full discharge and doing minimal discharge works well.

The fuse in your lighting is just there in case there is a catastrophic failure, and a 2A fuse would be fine. Depending on the type of fuse, much lower rated ones are available, but really won't gain you much.
 

Tracker

Dec 19, 2017
37
Joined
Dec 19, 2017
Messages
37
There are a couple of battery technologies that will quite happily tolerate a complete discharge, however the most common ones in use these days definitely do not.

I don't know what your scooter uses, but if it has a "fuel gauge" for the battery then the battery may be lithium. They definitely don't like full discharge and doing minimal discharge works well.

The fuse in your lighting is just there in case there is a catastrophic failure, and a 2A fuse would be fine. Depending on the type of fuse, much lower rated ones are available, but really won't gain you much.

For the record my batteries are AGM 70ah.
 
Top